Contents

Away from Malachor V and Brianna's cheating courses, the Bouteina was tasked with securing a shipment of hydroxyquinoline and of oxalyl chloride from Hydran chemical industries. They also find something else near said industries.

Their mission starts when the Tal Prai'ex headquarters hail them because of an industrial emergency: due to a high number of construction sites throughout the Empire, and a worker strike on Mysidia, they are unable to supply everyone with these chemicals and they ask them to secure a shipment of these chemicals in the Landfalk system. The discussions of the bridge quickly turns to the talks of the labor dispute and what each side demands from the other. Finally, Neleras tells everyone that there are pirates in the Landfalk system to secure said shipment of chemicals.

When the dreadnought arrives in the system, the crew engages the ship's cloaking device to take the pirates by surprise. They began to engage the two ships, a Strelets-classfrigate and another carrier, all deploying their fighters. To avoid taking too much damage from the fusion beams, they maintain safe distance to engage the enemy craft, including fighters. The fighter pilots started damaging enemy fighters, forcing them to turn back and destroying them in their flight. Also, Relm ordered her men to engage the enemy frigates afterwards.

Having narrowly avoided a volley of hellbore cannons, the mothership engages the heavier Hydran starship while the other four fighters still in fight all fired their plasma torpedoes to take the enemy frigate down, but fails to do so, merely disabling their power plants. And even when the mothership fired the quantum torpedoes, it didn't quite destroy the heavier ship. Rubble from the warp core prompted engineers to repair the ship while the fighters renew their assault on the lighter ship and their debris pierced the hull on Deck 11, damaging the dreadnought even more.

When the battle is about to end, they were hailed by a Hydran prince, saying that the Romulans just saved his planet and that trade from and to that planet could resume along any second. And that they could trade a chemicals shipment to the Romulans. Also, they began investigating into the matter of hanyurii dancing around the system's star. They realize that the hanyurii were mating and that they reproduced around a star that was "out of phase". Also, Dhiemm obtained more information about the labor disputes even when the Hydran shipment wasn't ready.

Pazzo muses about the Hydrans being involved in the dispute, if only because the unions involved are controlled by Hydran interests. Also, Catherine Giltia lists the consequences of the labor dispute for the Empire and the other reasons as to why Hydrans would involve themselves in their struggle. The Triple-E Senates have been watching the newsfeeds for musical inspiration and stumble upon the news that, under Hydran mediators, the labor dispute has been resolved in a 55% vs. 45%, resulting in a new collective bargaining agreement for the chemical workers on Mysidia.